Bass Lover’s Delight: Double-Bass Interplay Between Art Davis and Reggie Workman Motivates Leader and Band

Group Includes McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and an Uncredited Eric Dolphy

Mastered From the Original Master Tapes: Each Pluck of the Upright Instruments Registers With Tremendous Body

John Coltrane’s final album for Atlantic bookends the exploratory motifs he explores on his Impulse! debut, Africa/Brass, recorded concurrently, with each involving knotty rhythmic shifts and Spanish-derived textures. Bonding with an amazing band that includes pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and an uncredited Eric Dolphy (due to contractual reasons), Coltrane welcomes improvisations and ranging outside conventional parameters, all the while retaining melodic beauty.

Yet the biggest attraction on the 1961 effort comes via the double-bass interplay between Art Davis and Reggie Workman, whose back-and-forth exchanges produce heat and cause the leader to up his own game.

Mastered from the original master tapes, this dead-quiet 180g 45RPM 2LP set presents each pluck of the acoustic basses with tremendous body and decay. Long overdue for audiophile treatment, Olé Coltrane is ready for its closeup, and how.

Personnel:
John Coltrane — soprano sax
Eric Dolphy — flute
Freddie Hubbard — trumpet
McCoy Tyner — piano
Reggie Workman — bass
Art Davis — bass
Elvin Jones — drums

Artykuł John Coltrane <br />Ole Coltrane pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Previously out of press for over 25 years, this historic recording has now been remastered and pressed on audiophile-grade 140g vinyl at Pallas Group in Germany.

Musicians:
Billie Holiday, vocals
Stan Getz, tenor sax (4, 5, 6)
Buster Harding, piano
John Fields, bass
Marquis Foster, drums
Carl Drinkard, piano (6)
Jimmy Woode, bass (6)
Peter Littman, drums (6)

Artykuł Billie Holiday <br />At Storyville pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Artykuł Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars <br />Jazz Is Back in Grand Rapids pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Odyssey stands as James Blood Ulmer’s signature masterpiece, the purest and most
accessible showcase for his bold, genre-clashing guitar vision. With minimal
trio accompaniment – only drummer Warren Benbow and violinist Charles Burnham –
Ulmer’s guitar is always the meat of the ensemble, especially since his unique
tuning (developed for this album) allows him to cover bass parts as well as
guitar leads. AllMusic’s Steve Huey calls it “not only Ulmer’s finest album,
but a certified classic of the modern jazz avant-garde.” Now Odyssey finally
gets the audiophile treatment it deserves, in the form of a double LP, mastered
at 45RPM from original analog tapes by Bernie Grundman, pressed on 180gram
vinyl, and housed in Stoughton case-wrapped jacket.

Musicians:
James „Blood“ Ulmer, guitar
Warren Benbow, drums
Charles Burnham, violin

Artykuł James Blood Ulmer <br />Odysey pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Monk’s readings of the originals and standards practically stand the tunes on their collective ears. With nothing in the way of his hands on the piano keys, he delivers pieces such as „Ruby, My Dear“ with unfettered intensity and marvelous sophistication, and by equal measures, turns solemn and introspective on compositions like „Everything Happens to Me.“

Even if you’ve heard Monk perform some of these songs in a band setting, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Solo Monk is simply amazing. And now, mastered from the original master tapes, ORG Music’s 180g LP brings all the music closer, and into more transparent form, than ever before. This record is an analog treasure and will become a reference in your collection.

Artykuł Thelonious Monk <br />Solo Monk pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Musicians:
Ben Webster, tenor saxophone
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, bass
Alex Riel, drums
Kenny Drew, piano

Artykuł Ben WSebster <br />Gone With The Wind pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Artykuł Stevie Ray Vaughan <br />Couldn’t Stand The Weather <br />ULTRADISC ONE STEP LP pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Strictly limited to 7,000 numbered copies and pressed on SuperVinyl at RTI, Mobile Fidelity’s ultra-hi-fi UltraDisc One-Step collector’s edition brings Vaughan and Co. into your listening room and places them at your feet. You’ll enjoy deep-black backgrounds, pointillist details, staggering dynamics, and arguably, the most lifelike tonalities and nuances ever committed to vinyl. Experienced via UD1S, Vaughan’s scrunched-up face, closed-eyes appearance, quick-draw fingers, and cowboy hat into pristine focus. More importantly, the searing tones from his Fender Stratocaster and every touch of his pick on the strings are captured with extreme delicacy. You won’t miss a note. The soundstage is deep and wide, and the microdynamics pop. This is the closest you will ever come to hearing Vaughan perform in Antone’s, circa 1982.

The lavish packaging and beautiful presentation of Mobile Fidelity’s Texas Flood UD1S pressing befit its extremely select status. Housed in a deluxe box, this UD1S version contains special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, this reissue exists a curatorial artifact meant to be preserved, poured over, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and creativity, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the images to the textures.

Born of hot, sweaty bars and years of woodshedding in front of demanding crowds, Texas Flood is rooted in Austin’s rich musical heritage – as well as Vaughan’s tenure in Paul Ray & the Cobras, recipient of the „Best Band“ award in the city’s first-ever music poll. After getting his feet underneath him, Vaughan formed Triple Threat, the ensemble that morphed into Double Trouble, with which he’d perform with for the remainder of his career. Having evolved from a quintet to a trio, extra demands were placed on Vaughan’s role and playing – requirements he was more than comfortable to accommodate.

The evidence is scattered throughout Texas Flood, which single-handedly resuscitated a long-dormant genre. Spending more than half a year on the Billboard charts, the record pays homage to influences (Hendrix, Albert King, Larry Davis) and ripples with a freshness that joins contemporary Texas blues and muscular rock at the hip. Vaughan’s playing prizes emotion and pace, whether he’s lighting it up on the jumpy „Love Struck Baby“ or bursting with enthusiasm on the sparks-shooting „Pride and Joy.“

The trio proves equally mesmerizing on slow numbers, with covers of Howlin‘ Wolf’s „Tell Me“ and Davis‘ “ Texas Flood“ weeping with longing. And as if to insure his name is etched in history, Vaughan takes a jazzy stroll with the instrumental tribute „Lenny,“ covering all the bases in less than 40 minutes. On par with anything recorded by Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield, John Mayall, Johnny Winter, and the like, Texas Flood remains legion.

<b>More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior</b>

Instead of utilizing the industry-standard three-step lacquer process, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s new UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) uses only one step, bypassing two processes of generational loss. While three-step processing is designed for optimum yield and efficiency, UD1S is created for the ultimate in sound quality. Just as Mobile Fidelity pioneered the UHQR (Ultra High-Quality Record) with JVC in the 1980s, UD1S again represents another state-of-the-art advance in the record-manufacturing process. MFSL engineers begin with the original master tapes and meticulously cut a set of lacquers. These lacquers are used to create a very fragile, pristine UD1S stamper called a „convert.“ Delicate „converts“ are then formed into the actual record stampers, producing a final product that literally and figuratively brings you closer to the music. By skipping the additional steps of pulling another positive and an additional negative, as done in the three-step process used in standard pressings, UD1S produces a final LP with the lowest noise floor possible today. The removal of the additional two steps of generational loss in the plating process reveals tremendous amounts of extra musical detail and dynamics, which are otherwise lost due to the standard copying process. The exclusive nature of these very limited pressings guarantees that every UD1S pressing serves as an immaculate replica of the lacquer sourced directly from the original master tape. Every conceivable aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the most perfect record album available today.

<b>Mobile Fidelity SuperVinyl: The World’s Quietest Surfaces and Cleanest Grooves</b>

Mobile Fidelity SuperVinyl is a new proprietary compound developed by NEOTECH and RTI to address two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world’s quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab feels SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what we hear in the mastering lab.

Artykuł Stevie Ray Vaughan<br /> Texas Flood <br />ULTRADISC ONE STEP LP pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

„Quite clearly and obviously this new UHQR Kind of Blue sourced from Bernie Grundman’s (1997) ‚live‘ mix from the 3-track master, directly to lacquer sounds best compared to two early ‚6-Eyes,‘ Classic’s own double 180g set and that label’s single-sided 45rpm set, and Mobile Fidelity’s double 45 boxed edition, to which I compared the UHQR.

„Even the quietest original pressing creates a pleasing romantic blur over a soft bed of noise but compared to this issue the overall picture is distant and hazy (though the romanticized version still pulls). The UHQR offers the blackest, quietest backgrounds and unparalleled transparency, but more critically, the modified Finebuilt hand press produces unprecedented transient precision and instrumental focus and resolves low level details that will deliver surprises to even the most blasé KOB veteran, one of whom visited and exclaimed ‚I’ve never heard that before.‘ This pressing allows you to see further into the mix and transports you back in time and into the 30th Street studios. I don’t care what version you now have you’ve never heard Kind of Blue quite like this.“ — Music = 11/11; Sound = 11/11 Michael Fremer, AnalogPlanet.com, May 17, 2021. Read the whole review here.

„Until now The Classic Records Clarity Vinyl Flat Profile version of Kind of Blue was the closest to the sound on the three track session master from which it was cut. The Analogue Productions UHQR pressing from the same metal parts has taken it up a notch and gotten us even closer to the sound on those 1/2″ analog session master tapes! Buy two so you have one for a backup or to give someone the gift of music!“ — Michael Hobson, founder of Classic Records

Legends have a way of sticking around. If there was ever an album awaiting a high-fidelity, custom-pressed vinyl treatment of the level you now hold in your hands, it is Miles Davis‘ Kind of Blue. The top-selling jazz album of all time, it has been lauded, entered into „Best Of“ lists and Halls of Fame, and universally acknowledged as a landmark recording — a five-track masterpiece of melancholy mood and melody.

It continues to be one of the most listened-to and studied recordings of all time, a required primer for many young musicians, and one of the most transcendent pieces of music ever recorded. Davis played trumpet sublime with his ensemble sextet featuring pianist Bill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian „Cannonball“ Adderley with Wynton Kelly playing piano on „Freddy the Freeloader.“

Now Analogue Productions, the audiophile in-house reissue label of Acoustic Sounds, Inc., together with Quality Record Pressings, is putting Kind of Blue where it belongs: the Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) pressed on Clarity Vinyl on a manual Finebilt press with attention paid to every single detail of every single record.

The 200-gram records will feature the same flat profile that helped to make the original UHQR so desirable. From the lead-in groove to the run-out groove, there is no pitch to the profile, allowing the customer’s stylus to play truly perpendicular to the grooves from edge to center. Clarity Vinyl allows for the purest possible pressing and the most visually stunning presentation. Every UHQR will be hand inspected upon pressing completion, and only the truly flawless will be allowed to go to market. Each UHQR will be packaged in a deluxe box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product.

Kind of Blue is more than Miles Davis’s most enduring recording, it’s a testament to Miles‘ experimental approach, drastically simplifying modern jazz by returning to melody unlike the chord complexity more often heard at the time. „The music has gotten thick,“ Davis complained in a 1958 interview for The Jazz Review. „… There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.“ Kind of Blue is, in a sense, all melody — and atmosphere.

None of the musicians had played any of the tunes before heading into the first of two recording sessions in early spring of 1959. In fact Miles had written out the settings for most of them only a few hours before the session. Miles also stuck to his old recording procedure of having virtually no rehearsal and only one take for each tune.

Miles remained proud of the album, performing at least two of its tracks — „So What“ and „All Blues“ — for years after, until his musical path took him in a different direction.

History was on the side of Kind of Blue; it was born in 1959, at the peak of the golden age of high-fidelity, featuring innovations in studio equipment (magnetic tape, high-quality condenser microphones), matched by advancements in home audio reproduction (long-player records — LPs; high-end turntables, and other stereo components). Kind of Blue also benefited from Miles‘ being signed to the leading major record company of the day — Columbia Records, a part of the CBS media conglomerate. Columbia had the means and wisdom to invest in cutting edge recording technology, and their own professional recording studio.

A minor audio complication with Kind of Blue has been addressed with this UHQR edition. The motor on the studio’s 3-track master recorder was running slowly the day of the album’s first session. This speed issue affected the album’s first three tracks, „So What,“ „Freddie Freeloader“ and „Blue in Green,“ making them a barely perceptible quarter-tone sharp.This issue was finally addressed with the Classic Records reissue in 1995. This UHQR was pressed from the same parts that Bernie Grundman cut directly from the original 3-track masters for Classic in ’95.

Sixty years have passed; this LP bridges that time span in the best way possible, struck from the master reel of Kind of Blue, free of speed issues and replete with all the instrumental detail, sonic environment and minimal noise. As we set out to make our UHQR series the world’s best-sounding vinyl records, we have also used Clarity Vinyl, which is free of any carbon black pigment which might introduce surface noise. All-in-all this edition of Kind of Blue meets the highest audiophile standards and offers the truest sound for the most enjoyment.

Music – 11
Sound – 11

Ratings from Michael Fremer @ AnalogPlanet.com

Artykuł Miles Davis <br /> Kind of blue <br />Ultra High Quality Record! pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.

Joanne Grauner introducing Lorraine Feather. Regrettably Joanne Grauer is listed with only three LPs to her name in encyclopaedias of jazz. The present album on the MPS label is the second, and certainly most sought-after, of this all-round musician. And it is probably Joanne Grauer’s most personal LP, for she was given all the time she needed in the studio together with her friends – and what is more the critic and producer Leonard Feather did not influence her musically in the very least..Even though she did was not totally uninfluenced by Horace Silver, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, it was the opportunities offered back in 1977 by the electronic keyboard that opened new doors for Joanne Grauer. But she is certainly not an avant-gardist for melodious sound-colouring is her top priority and she achieved mood music situated somewhere between the classical jazz piano trio and rock-pop sound. Most themes come from Joanne Grauer’s pen, and she is certainly in the foreground as a soloist too. In „See You Later“, „Can’t Sleep“ and „The Voice“, she is joined by the gentle voice of Lorraine Feather, while Ernie Watts’s saxophone provides a powerful, welcome contrast which successfully puts a halt to drifting off into mere melodiousness. Joanne Grauer’s final work on the album, „Frog Child“, is given over to be-bop and makes a wonderful final cadence to a recording which carries all the hallmark of the 70s but still sounds fresh and new in the year 2001.

1. Gork
2. Evergreen
3. Misty Dreams & Ruffy’s Eyes
4. Longing
5. Happy
6. See You Later
7. Can’t Sleep
8. The Voice
9. Frog Child

Speakerscorner’s junge Jahren – very rare Ausgabe

Artykuł Joanne Grauner introducing Lorraine Feather pochodzi z serwisu Cleartone.